Torches, smashed windows – must have been a Tea Party!

posted at 10:12 am on May 3, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

After months of warning that Tea Party protests would erupt into violence, a wave of vandalism and violence crested in Santa Cruz this weekend. Masked protesters wielding torches swarmed through the business district, smashing windows and chanting “the streets are on fire!” and “Revolution!” It’s exactly the kind of armed uprising that Tea Party critics predicted … except that it didn’t erupt at a Tea Party:

A group of protesters demonstrating at a May Day rally for worker’s and immigrant rights downtown broke off into a riot vandalizing about a dozen businesses around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, police said.

Windows were left shattered and graffiti including anarchy signs were tagged onto buildings. The Rittenhouse Building, Urban Outfitters, Jamba Juice and Velvet Underground all had windows broken, according to Capt. Steve Clark.

Santa Cruz police asked for help from all agencies in the county to break up the riot of about 200 people. At one point, protesters lit a fire on the porch of Caffe Pergolesi and blocked access to firefighters, officers said. Police were able to clear out the demonstrators before more damage was caused.

A large rock sat outside Verizon Wireless on the 100 block of Cooper Street, where vandals tried to break the window twice, according to Clark.

Jim Hoft has video of the riot:

Let’s do a quick recap. Tea Parties have been held in various locations for well over a year, and none of them has turned violent at all. Arizona passes an immigration law a week ago, and already we’ve had one Leftist demonstration result in violence, calls for the overthrow of the US, and rioting.

Will the same hyperventilating media that sees a militia in every Tea Party make the same broad-stroke analysis of the open-borders Left after a real show of violence and demands for revolution? Don’t hold your breath.

Update: Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee says it wasn’t just Santa Cruz, either, but also Asheville, NC. The Boss Emeritus finds another in San Francisco. She also finds a Univision reporter participating in a protest he was covering. Will Univision suspend the reporter as KOTA did Shad Olson?

Mayo de Cinco celebrations anyone? I’m flying my Gadsen flag 24/7 from now on…. as a warning to illegals, I am your enemy. I mean my comments towards illegals and their supporters, not the honorable Hispanics who became citizens the right way. You have my respect and my support.

Here’s the thing, the Tea Partiers are people who build things. They build families, they build businesses, they build careers and they build nations. They don’t destroy they build.

Liberals/Progressives/Leftists want to tear down. They want to destroy the Constitution, destroy businesses, destroy families and destroy the country, because they stands in the way to total power for the Statists.

All of you people make me sick. You’re all racists! You don’t want a bunch of Mexican immigrants that hate White people to take over your country? What’s wrong with you people? Why don’t you want your society to mirror the Third world in poverty rates? You people also object to an expanded welfare state due to tons of both legal and illegal immigration? Really though everyone in all seriousness this issue is getting good coverage and it will again. Any GOP contenders in the future who speak of amnesty, or securing the border but increasing Legal Immigration instead? Are fools! I would if most immigrants were supermen who didn’t rely on Welfare or entitlements. Make no mistake, only 150,000 visas are H-1B visas which are your tech visas, mostly Asian immigrants. Some of them are needed but a majority of them are cheap labor. The other 1 million visas are low skilled and unskilled labor. Which is your burger king workers, construction workers, etc. Just because you rubber stamp something legal doesn’t mean its okay. Even if it’s Legal, the welfare state is and will expand. We also don’t face a shrinking native birth rate like Europe. White fertility is actually going up. It was 1.8 now its 1.9! according to the Center for disease control! Not that it matters. Immigration laws have to be enforced, the border fortified, English and assimilation enforced and fewer numbers across the board. That’s how the melting pot was created. Arizona is leading the way, shall the USA?